Klutznick `Graduating` From Urbana

December 02, 1985|By David Ibata.

James B. Klutznick, the last member of the Klutznick family at Urban Investment and Development Co., will leave the firm at the end of the month to go into the business of building senior citizen housing, The Tribune has learned.

``It`s time to graduate and go out on my own,`` said Klutznick, 42, who has worked for the company his father founded since 1970.

Klutznick is a senior vice president of Chicago-based Urban and executive vice president of its subsidiary, UIDC Management Inc. He described his pending departure from Urban as ``very friendly.``

He will become a partner with developer William B. Kaplan at Senior Lifestyle Corp., a Chicago firm that will build, lease and operate apartment buildings tailored to active persons 65 and older.

Their first project will be Sheridan Road Lifecare Community, a 33-story, 476-unit rental high rise at 5333 N. Sheridan Rd. on the city`s North Side. First occupancies in the $44 million building will be in the autumn of 1987.

The partners also are planning Skokie Lifecare Community, a project to cost up to $30 million and consist of an 8-story building with 270 units and a 43-bed, temporary health-care facility.

The development will be on the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Madison Street in north suburban Skokie. If village officials give the green light for the project, construction may begin next autumn and be completed late the following year.

Senior Lifestyle expects to open as many as eight projects with more than 2,000 apartments over the next five years, for a total construction volume of up to $300 million, Klutznick said. The firm is scouting sites throughout the suburbs, on the Near South Side and in the Hyde Park neighborhood. It also may take its idea to other Midwest cities.

Persons 65 years and older ``represent more than 10 percent of the population, a number that will almost double in 25 years,`` Klutznick said.

``Demographically, it`s the fastest-growing segment of our society.``

Senior Lifestyle will cater to seniors who can still live independently

``and are actively working or traveling,`` yet occasionally may need emergency medical aid and temporary home health care, he said.

James` father, Philip M. Klutznick, founded Urban in the late 1960s by combining partnerships that had developed such suburban shopping centers as Old Orchard in Skokie, Oakbrook Center in Oak Brook and River Oaks in Calumet City.

The elder Klutznick, who also developed the area`s first planned community, the southern suburb of Park Forest, sold Urban in 1970 to Aetna Life & Casualty Co. He stayed on as chairman and brought Urban back into the central city with Water Tower Place, the $200 million retail, office, apartment and hotel development at 845 N. Michigan Ave.

Philip Klutznick left Urban in 1975 to pursue a career in public service and served as Secretary of Commerce under the Carter administration from 1979 through 1981.

James` older brother, Thomas Klutznick, served as chairman of Urban from 1978 to 1981. Thomas left the firm in 1981 and the following year joined other real estate executives and investors to form Miller-Klutznick-Davis-Gray Co., a nationwide development firm.

James Klutznick joined Urban`s leasing and management operation in 1970 following a five-year stint with the U.S. Air Force. Before that, he earned a bachelor`s degree in art and archeology from Princeton University in 1965.

At Urban, Klutznick helped fill Water Tower Place and the $550 million Copley Place project in Boston with tenants. Most recently, he has

Klutznick, who with his wife Judy and children Kimberly, 10; Marc, 12, and Barri, 18, live on the city`s Near North Side, met Kaplan while doing volunteer work for the Jewish United Fund. Kaplan resigned as a managing partner at the Chicago real estate firm of Romanek-Golub & Co. in 1983 to pursue his dream of developing senior housing.

``We played tennis together every Sunday, and I got weekly updates on

(Kaplan`s) work,`` Klutznick said.

As the concept jelled, so did the idea that the two men go into business together.

``The thought of an emerging population that needs to be housed in a way different from the past excited me,`` Klutznick said. ``When I shared this idea with my dad, he became excited, too.``

The elder Klutznick also advised his son that if he wanted to be an entrepreneur, it might be just as well that he stayed away from what he was most familiar with: Ambitious mixed-use projects.

The younger Klutznick said he expected no problems in applying his real estate expertise to senior citizen housing.

``It`s not entirely different,`` he said. ``I don`t care what business you`re in--you have to fulfill somebody`s needs, just as my dad foresaw the need for (family) housing in the late 1940s with Park Forest.``